from the archives – Page 13 – Self Publishing Advisor

Advocacy in Self-Publishing, from the archives, Kelly Speaks, Self-Publishing, Uncategorized

From the Archives: “Avoid these 5 mistakes when choosing your publisher”

Welcome back to our Tuesday segment, where we’ll be revisiting some of our most popular posts from the last few years. What’s stayed the same? And what’s changed? We’ll be updating you on the facts, and taking a new (and hopefully refreshing) angle on a few timeless classics of Self Publishing Advisor.

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[ Originally posted: April 23rd, 2010 ]

1) DO NOT CHOOSE SPEED OVER QUALITY
Avoid publishers that claim to publish in 24 hours. After the time it took to write your book, do you want it published right, or overnight? Avoid overnight publishers no matter what they charge because the only one looking at your book will be a computer. It should take between 6-15 weeks.

2) DO NOT BE FOOLED BY HIGH ROYALTY CLAIMS
A royalty is simply a percentage of another number. The actual dollars and cents you earn depends upon that second number. The truest royalty is a royalty based upon the retail price of your book. Many publishers use “net royalty” which is a royalty based upon their profit. To be sure, always confirm your profit in dollars and cents.

3) DO NOT SIGN YOUR RIGHTS AWAY
The main advantage to self-publishing alternatively with a on-demand publisher is that you keep all the rights to your work. The rights are valuable. Read the contract. Your rights should clearly stay with you.

4) DO NOT BE CONFUSED BY BULK DISCOUNTS
If a publisher normally offers discounts to an author who buys their own book in bulk, that tells you two things. 1) It tells you they are more concerned with selling to you than to other readers. 2) It tells you they are charging you too much for lower quantities. Do you really want to be forced to buy 100 books at a time just to get a fair price? “Bulk” discounts simply trick the author into buying more books than they need, which defeats the whole advantage of on-demand printing.

5) DO NOT BE TRICKED BY AUTHOR DISCOUNTS
As an author, your per-book price should be based upon the production cost of the book, not the retail price. No wonder publishers inflate their retail pricing. You should always receive a below-wholesale price, regardless of how many you buy. You will never make money if you have to buy your own book at wholesale from the publisher.

When push comes to shove, all five of these points boil down to the same core idea:

You ought always to look for a self-publishing company that puts you––the author––first. A company that shares your ethics and vision for rendering stories accessible to readers. A company that knows how to treat people right and does so consistently, day in and day out.

A company that works solely to satisfy its bottom line and invested parties is a company that has forgotten the human element … and the whole point of self-publishing, to be perfectly frank. Responsibility to shareholders and investors is one thing, but the deliberate choice to inflate profits at the expense of quality products, customer satisfaction, and author empowerment is unconscionable and inexcusable. I sometimes wonder how much of the corporate soullessness we see in certain corners of the world today has its roots in people not loving the work they do––not finding value and meaning in enriching the lives of others in addition to their own, and not seeing the significance of their daily tasks or the opportunities to craft a career that is as much art as it is science. But here I’m rambling!

Looking back nearly six years to this original post, I now see the five mistakes noted above to be more a list of symptoms than a list of “to-not-dos” … because each and every single one points to a company that prioritizes itself over its product and clients:

If a company maximizes profits by creating artificially high prices that only seem reasonable when reduced to a bulk or “author-only” rate, it is clearly a company that cares very little about balancing the need for profit and survival in a competitive market with the reality that self-publishing is a market and industry that demands transparency, accessibility, and progressive thinking. It is a company that looks to trap its customers into a long-term, toxic, parasitic relationship.
If a company prioritizes speed over a quality product or quality customer service, then it’s a company that sells itself using gimmicks … and gimmicks, as we are all well aware, are the desperate empty gestures of a company lacking imagination. Innovation and creativity do not produce inferior versions of a thing; they find new and fresh ways to look at problems and to improve upon that thing.

In short, no, nothing really has changed in the six years since this post first hit the Self Publishing Advisor front page. There were ungenerous self-publishing companies in existence then, and there are ungenerous self-publishing companies in existence now. We haven’t changed that fact in half a decade, and we’re not particularly likely to change it in the next. What we can change, however, is our own degree of discernment. We can spot the warning signs––the symptoms above––and steer well away from companies that manifest them. We can choose not to sell ourselves short, and to choose instead a publishing option that respects us as authors and empowers us to better ends than a bottom line.

If you have any other ideas, I’d love to hear them. Drop me a line in the comments section below and I’ll respond as quickly as I can. ♠

ABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.

Cheri Speaks, from the archives, Kelly Speaks, print-on-demand, Publishing Trends, technology

From the Archives: “Espresso Book Machine”

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[ Originally posted: January 31st, 2012 ]

The Espresso Book Machine® (the “EBM”), which Time Magazine named an “Invention of the Year,” provides a revolutionary direct-to-consumer distribution model for books. Put simply, the EBM is an automated book-making machine. The operator selects a title to print, and within a few minutes a book emerges, with a full-color cover, trimmed to an exact size, and indistinguishable from the publisher’s version. As we say, “Hot off the press!”

Currently, Espresso Book Machines have been set-up in select universities and libraries including:

New York Public Library

University of Michigan Library

World Bank InfoShop, Washington

New Orleans Public Library

San Francisco Internet Archive

Manchester Center Northshire Bookstore

University of Alberta

McMaster University Bookstore

London Newsstand UK

Library of Alexandria, Egypt

Melbourne, Australia Angus & Robertson Bookstore

New locations are constantly being added. The EBM is a great opportunity for self-published authors. Some self-publishing companies, such as Outskirts Press, offer this marketing option. By purchasing this option, your book will be available to be ordered, printed, and sold at every current and future Espresso Book Machine location. To learn more about this option, contact your self-publishing company.

– by Cheri Breeding

It’s been rather a long time since we’ve touched on the subject of the Espresso Book Machine here at Self Publishing Advisor, despite the fact that the above post from 2012 remains one of our most popular posts of all time. What is it about this machine––what’s the big deal? And more importantly, is it delivering upon its promise as a revolution for the self-publishing print-on-demand (POD) business?

There’s a long and a short answer to both of these questions, of course. The EBM is not just a pretty gadget that happens to churn out new books as quickly as the average human takes to brew an espresso; it’s a gadget that has the potential to close the last leg of the loop and put full creative (and financial) rights into the hands of those who have historically been excluded from the publishing process. I’m speaking of the author. While its many bells and whistles are nice features––like the database of rare or out-of-print books you can resurrect in all their original glory––the real appeal of the EBM is that it literally as well as physically puts a high-quality printed book in your hand in around seven minutes. For the average self-publishing author, the experience of holding and experiencing the weight of all those sleepless nights and odd hours writing is simply unattainable––that is, without a service like the EBM making a limited run financially manageable. Holding a clean and professional copy of your baby is a reward in and of itself, and the expediency for which the EBM is renowned makes it easy to share the joy of your book. That’s the magic of the Espresso Book Machine!

As for the EBM’s outlook and longevity, the news seems to be good. The machines aren’t available “just anywhere” yet, but they’re becoming less of a trial to find. I recently had the pleasure of witnessing an EBM at work in the University of Arizona’s library, where undergraduates printed out copies of research-related texts, graduates printed out beautiful bound editions of their thesis projects, and professors printed out volumes of their own masterworks-in-progress.

Members of the public, too, have made the UofA’s EBM a popular destination––and it’s not just an Arizonan phenomenon! According to Canada’s The Windsor Star, the Windsor Public Library’s EBM alone produced “10,699 books” between 2012 and July 2015, when the article was published. Says librarian Sue Perry, the EBM’s installation “led to the birth of a writer’s group and gave people a way to publish their work even if they only want one book.” Now that’s quite a testimonial.

According to WorldCrunch, the EBM and its competitors are on track to “save” the print publishing industry. At the Paris Book Fair, the CEO of the EBM’s main shareholder (reinsurance company SCOR) went on the record to say that the Espresso Book Machine and those who use it “will be the invisible hand that will adjust the market,” eliminating what he called “economies of scale” by making it possible to print either 1 copy of a book or 1000 without the gymnastics of traditional publishing arrangements. WordCrunch goes on to note that, a decade after stealing the limelight of both tech and print-on-demand industries, the Espresso Book Machine is still “experimental but game-changing.” And that’s about as good of news as one might hope for!

We look forward to seeing what 2016 holds for the Espresso Book Machine.

If you have any other ideas, I’d love to hear them. Drop me a line in the comments section below and I’ll respond as quickly as I can. ♠

from the archives, Kelly Speaks, Uncategorized, Writing

From the Archives: “5 Tips for Finding Errors in Your Writing”

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[ Originally posted: March 23rd, 2010 ]

1 – Utilize an editor

The most common mistakes are minor, such as misspellings or incorrect use of punctuation. Other common errors are incorrect word use (their, they’re, there). A professional copyeditor is adept at noticing and correcting these kinds of mistakes. Do not make the mistake of relying solely upon a computerized spell-checker, which cannot tell the difference between “worse” and “worst” since they are both properly spelled words. Use an editor – a human one. Good self-publishing options will provide copyediting and other more advanced services. Be sure to ask your rep.

2 – Get a second (and third) set of eyes

Even if you do not wish to pay a professional, anyone who reviews your writing will find mistakes you invariably miss. Since you are overly familiar with your own work you are much more likely to miss obvious mistakes because your mind already knows what it is supposed to say, rather than what it actually says. When someone else reads your work, they have no preconceived notions about your writing. In addition to finding mistakes, other people may offer helpful suggestions to make your business writing stronger.

3 – Come back to it later

Do you wait long enough after writing something to begin editing it? Many writers edit their work as they write it. Not only does this slow down the creative process, it increases the chance that your mind will ignore blatant errors in deference to your intentions. Once your brain thinks a paragraph is free from errors, it tends to overlook any new errors that are introduced during the rewriting process. Put your writing away for several hours, days, or weeks and revisit it later. After some time away from your work, you will be more likely to read the words as they appear on the page, not as you envisioned them in your mind. The mind is error-free, the page is not.

4 – Read your material backwards

You are only familiar with your writing in one direction – forward. Reading your material backwards makes it seem entirely different and fools your mind into ignoring the intention and only concentrating on the reality. Furthermore, your critical view of the writing at its most technical level will not be corrupted by the flowing exposition you have massaged into sparkling prose. When you read your manuscript backwards, it becomes a collection of words. Without contextual meaning, the brain has nothing to focus upon other than the words themselves. Mistakes literally jump off the page.

5 – Read your material out loud

When you read words aloud, your brain must slow down and concentrate on the material. How fast can you read the following sentence? The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs. Now how fast can you read it out loud? It takes at least twice as long, and those precious milliseconds sometimes make all the difference between a typo that is missed, and one that is caught and corrected.

As a popular Internet posting informed us in 2003, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wtihuot any porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. But try raednig tihs out luod and see how far you get. An extra bonus for reading your material out loud is that you may discover stumbling blocks like awkward sentence structure and choppy dialogue.

Writing is weird and hard … and sometimes we just can’t make it work without a little help from a third party, be it a casual acquaintance or a paid professional. Those pesky little demons, typos, seem to slip under the radar at every opportunity––and there’s no way to catch them all, since every author has unique and quirky “characteristic typos.” I, for instance, have a tendency to self-edit in the middle of writing a sentence, and doing so often leaves relics behind: duplicate words, confounded sentence structure, and incomplete thoughts. One of my closest friends, a trilingual émigré from France, has a wholly different weakness: transcription errors and run-on sentences. Still another friend is prone to switch tense and person faster than Marvel churns out movie plotlines.

On the subject of typos:

“If we are our own harshest critics,” asks Nick Stockton of WIRED magazine, “why do we miss those annoying little details?” The answer may be more life-affirming than you think. Writes Stockton, “The reason typos get through isn’t because we’re stupid or careless, it’s because what we’re doing is actually very smart.” He goes on to quote psychologist Tom Stafford of the University of Sheffield. “When you’re writing, you’re trying to convey meaning. It’s a very high level task,” said Stockton. The reason we miss typos is because we are too smart, instinctively and unconsciously, about how we process information. Expediency requires our brains to distill language down to its component parts and to extrapolate or guess rather than literally consider each letter on a page. Stockton says it much better:

“Generalization is the hallmark of all higher-level brain functions. It’s similar to how our brains build maps of familiar places, compiling the sights, smells, and feel of a route. That mental map frees your brain up to think about other things. Sometimes this works against you, like when you accidentally drive to work on your way to a barbecue, because the route to your friend’s house includes a section of your daily commute. We can become blind to details because our brain is operating on instinct. By the time you proof read your own work, your brain already knows the destination.”

Today I went to the movies with a friend, and despite having discussed (in detail) beforehand how we needed to pick up cheese from the grocery store on the way home to make omelets later, I found myself well past the turnoff before it even computed that I was supposed to be doing something other than following instinctive muscle memory. All this to say, I feel the truth of Stockton’s words on a profound and immediate level. And as an author, I’m well aware of just how prone I am to skip my characteristic typos.

The original 5 tips are still relevant

… but it’s just as important to understand why typos happen and to recognize three key things about them:

everyone makes errors;
these errors are unique and originate from somewhere that makes sense for each person; and
you are not a successful author if you magically avoid making any typos––you’re a successful author if you take steps to address the reality of errors in your writing and trust the tried-and-true editorial tips above to catch them.

It’s so easy to fixate on finding errors before you hand your manuscript off for other people to read, but in all reality part of the reason authors find early readers is to help with the editorial process!

If you have any other ideas, I’d love to hear them. Drop me a line in the comments section below and I’ll respond as quickly as I can. ♠

Cheri Speaks, copyediting, Editing Your Self-Published Book, from the archives, Kelly Speaks, Uncategorized

From the Archives: “There’s a Problem with Your Book”

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[ Originally posted: March 1st, 2011 ]

Your book published. Your family and friends have bought it. You’re excited…until they call you to tell you there were so many grammatical errors in the book that it was difficult to finish reading. “Oh no, I should have paid for copyediting”. Now you run the risk of “looking” unprofessional in the author community.

Too often authors are faced with the decision to either save their pennies or invest in editing services. They decide to bypass the editing. Fast forward to publication and many authors wish they would have made the extra investment. Even if you have gone through your manuscript with a fine tooth comb and had friends or family look it over, you’re almost guaranteed to find mistakes at publication. As a matter of fact, when you pay for professional copyediting services, the editor normally still has a 5% margin for error. With that margin of error from fresh and professionally trained eyes, imagine the level of error from amateur and familiar eyes.

When asked what they would have done differently when self-publishing their book, most authors agree they would have invested more money into professional copyediting and customizing their book cover.

So, I’m sold on the need for copyediting service, what do I need to know about working with an editor? Here are a few tips/things to keep in mind when you hire an editor:

Proofread and spell-check your work before sending it to an editor.

Remember that Editors are human and many work with about a 5% margin of error.

There are different levels of editing intensity: basic, moderate, and extensive.

Basic copyediting typically catches about 70% of errors in a manuscript.

As a self-publishing author, don’t focus on what the editor didn’t find, but rather what WAS found.

Review your manuscript again after you receive it from the editor to check for errors they may have missed.

If you want to be a successful author, it is important that you take the publishing process very seriously. That includes investing extra money into creating a polished product.

– by Cheri Breeding

The topic of copyediting and the professional-grade book is not a new one to us here at Self-Publishing Advisor, but back in 2011 when Cheri first wrote her post it was not yet the standard by which most indie books were judged. Since then, the industry has evolved, and we’ve written several times to try and sort out what copyediting might mean to the current aspiring self-publishing author. (You can read those posts here and here.)

Because we tackle this topic on a regular basis, it’s less helpful to rehash those posts than it is to do something a little different: I want to show you the difference between a professionally designed and copyedited book and one that hasn’t seen as much love and care put into its production.

Let’s start with covers. To start, first let me say that it’s no exaggeration that there are two terribly designed self-published book covers out there for every good one. All you have to do is look at the templates people are choosing from …

… to see why this is so easily and so often the case. A professionally designed cover makes all the difference to your book’s impact on potential readers, and all the difference as to whether they actually choose to pay to purchase it. Here are two neat examples of self-published books I’ve seen recently that I felt immediately drawn to for no other reason than the fact they are beautifully designed:

What I love most about these two examples is that they put the lie to any claim that genre fiction leans easily toward poor design. Cazanav’s book is billed as paranormal fantasy, and Taylor’s as literary fiction––but if anything, Cazanav’s is sharper, more specific, and more revealing of the book’s content and tone. That’s a good move!

So, let’s assume you’re sold on a professionally-designed cover. What happens when you crack the spine and turn to the first page? Does anything change? Yes and no. As Kyle Beshears writes on his blog, there’s real value to investing time and money into getting the exact design you want inside of your book as well as out. Beshears chronicles his entire journey to self-publication, and points out that his choices––which always involved taking the cheapest option, even if it meant sacrificing untold hours of time and labor for his entire family––is not, in the end, a path worth following for many indie authors.

Just getting the title page of his book to look the way he wanted (above, on the right) was a lengthy struggle. Paying a little money up front doesn’t just ensure you get the design you want––it ensures you have an active advocate or team of advocates working for you and on your behalf to make sure your book is as beautiful as you’ve always hoped.

On a paragraph-by-paragraph basis, copyediting does for your sentences what a graphic designer does for your cover––which is to say, a copyeditor will whip your lines into shape and help you revise your book into something even stronger, and more compelling, than you could do on your own. Relying on friends and family to be early readers is a good move, but relying on them to bring the same expertise and incisive vision as a career copyeditor who has been in the publishing industry for years and years is not such a good move. Copyediting isn’t about changing what you do––it’s about making sure you create the best book possible and shifting some of the burden of perfection and hyperspecific industry insight off of your shoulders so that you can spend more time doing what you love: writing new books!

If you have any other ideas, I’d love to hear them. Drop me a line in the comments section below and I’ll respond as quickly as I can. ♠

Advocacy in Self-Publishing, Book Promotion, Book Promotion Strategy, from the archives, Kelly Speaks, Uncategorized

From the Archives: “5 Ways to Increase Book Sales by Giving Away the First Chapter”

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[ Originally posted: June 17th, 2011 ]

I love Amazon! I frequently search for books on Amazon. I pay attention to what Amazon recommends for me. I have a Kindle and often check Amazon’s list of “Top 100 Free” Kindle Ebooks. As a reader, the choices for “what to read next” are endless. My “to read” list is never under 25 books. Readers have so many choices these days, so, as an author, how do you convince readers to choose your book to read next?

One idea is to give away the first chapter of your book. Everyone likes getting something for free, right? The first chapter will give the reader a taste of the book and will entice them to want to read more. There are a few ways you can get your first chapter into the hands (or onto the screens) of your potential readers:

Add a message in your email signature asking your contacts to let you know if they would like to receive a copy of the first chapter of your book. For those who reply, send them a PDF copy of the first chapter and let them know where to buy the hardcopy if they like it and want to read more.

Put an ad in your local newspaper with a short (1-2 sentence) synopsis of your book, inviting potential readers to email you for a PDF copy of the first chapter for free. When you email the file to these contacts, let them know where to buy the hardcopy if they like it and want to read more.

Similarly, put an ad on Craigslist (in the “free” section) with a short synopsis of your book, inviting potential readers to contact you for a free PDF copy of the first chapter. And – you guessed it! – when you send it to them, let them know where to buy the hardcopy if they like it and want to read more.

First Chapter Plus publishes and distributes a monthly e-catalog, which includes the first chapters of print and digital books, and mp3 clips of audio books to over 35,000 opt-in subscribers. This listing will include the necessary details for where potential readers can find and purchase a copy of your book.

If you’re a blogger, publish the first chapter of your book in a blog post or link to a PDF file where your readers can open the first chapter and read it. Be sure to let readers know where to buy the book once they’ve read the first chapter and want more. Author Ian Lurie actually allows his viewers to read the entire contents of his book, Conversation Marketing, online. See how he does this here: http://www.conversationmarketing.com/internet-marketing-book/

DISCUSSION: What are some other ways that you might distribute the first chapter of your book to potential readers?

– by Kelly Schuknecht

The world has shifted somewhat since 2011. By that, I don’t mean to suggest that my original points are somehow now invalid––they’re all still great ideas and, except for the newspaper advertisement and First Chapter Plus (which runs about $100 for one month of promotion) they’re free–but I do mean to introduce social media to this list. Back in 2011, most of the more popular websites (such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) already existed––but they hadn’t yet quite reached the cultural tipping point where they are now at, where a single post can go viral and by force of sheer momentum, alter reality offline, outside of the internet. This makes for some very good news for you, the self-publishing author, especially when it comes to promotions like free sample chapters.

Here are three more ways to get your first chapter into the hearts and homes and hands of your potential readers:

Take advantage of your existing social media presence (and maybe even beef it up a little). There’s never been an easier way to spread the news that you have a sample chapter out there waiting to be read than by alerting your followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, Tumblr, and elsewhere. Not familiar with one of these social media platforms? It might just be worth taking a look to see whether it might be of use to you, both for this promotion and for other networking purposes. Except for Tumblr, none of these platforms can actually serve as host for your chapter’s file––with Tumblr, you can just copy and paste into a text post, and it will preserve almost all of your formatting––but part of their appeal is that they create exactly the right kind of “bite-sized” bits of information that makes for shareable content. My suggestion is this: upload your .PDF file online or steal your Amazon book listing’s hyperlink, and paste that link into a cute little promotional post for each of these platforms.
Fans will sometimes do the sharing for you, as with this sample chapter to George R.R. Martin’s next book that appeared on Tumblr recently.
Take advantage of the Kindle Store’s automatic sample*––in several ways. Did you publish through KDP, or Kindle Direct Publishing? If you did, then 10% of your book is automatically accessible to your readers for free. It’s worth noting at the outset that one of the downsides to publishing through KDP is that you can’t choose which chapter or what content is made available this way, but such are the hazards of publishing through a large company with little customizability. If you do publish through Amazon’s KDP, however, take full advantage! As I mentioned above in point #1, you can grab the hyperlink to your book listing and share the sample chapter’s availability far and wide. Additionally (or alternatively) you might use the automatic sample as a guidepost to what you should steer clear of including in your own promotion. If Amazon, for example, offers the first chapter, you might upload a .PDF to your blog of chapter two. This might prove to be an especially clever move, since dedicated readers will have to access both your Amazon book listing and your personal blog––and doing so increases their exposure to your product, which in turn increases the odds they’ll purchase your book!
Make it visual, and make it embeddable. Software designer Nathan Barry writes that “moving from a text link to a more visual graphic can double the number of downloads of a sample chapter. That’s expected since it is much more visual and will grab more attention.” How do you go about doing this? First, create a graphic snapshot of your book’s cover or first few pages––something attractive that intimates the look and feel of your book––and then use a software app or program like ConvertKit to generate email subscription and download options. This will create an embeddable piece of HTML code that you can insert into your blog and any other platform that allows for HTML content.
image credit: nathanbarry.com

And there you have it: three new ways to engage your readers with the wonderful promotional tool that is the free sample chapter!

* NOTE: several other publishers, including indie and hybrid self-publishing companies, offer sample chapter options. You should always inquire after the options by contacting your Personal Marketing Assistant.

If you have any other ideas, I’d love to hear them. Drop me a line in the comments section below and I’ll respond as quickly as I can. ♠

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On the subject of typos:

The original 5 tips are still relevant

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